carny world

Friday, September 7, 2012

Freaky but fascinating these vintage photographs reveal circus sideshow acts in all their glory. Photographer Charles Eisenmann followed performers in the mid-1800s in New York City and offered to shoot their portraits so they could tout for business.

The freak show was popular with the lower classes, causing 'dime museums' to spring up in some of the city's most impoverished neighborhoods.

Acts included the incredible Prince Randian - born without arms or legs but incredibly self-sufficient and able to shave, paint, write and even roll cigarettes. He featured in Tod Browning's 1932 movie Freaks which aimed to humanize and show the beauty of people who many regarded as monsters.

Others were 'freaks' because of medical conditions. Jojo, the dog-faced boy appeared to suffer from hypertrichosis, a genetic condition which causes excess hair growth while 'big-footed' Fanny Mills was thought to have Milroy's disease which causes legs to swell up.

The side show was not always about humans - some exhibited deformed animals (like two-headed cows and one-eyed pigs), famous hoaxes, or macabre 'science-gone-wrong' exhibits such as deformed babies.

As science improved and led to many of the 'freaks' physical differences being explained as genetic mutation or disease, the sideshow fell into decline as the individuals were treated with compassion and sympathy instead of fear and disgust.

Stop and stare: 'Big-footed' Fanny Mills (left) most likely had Milroy's Disease which caused leg swelling. Anne Leek, the armless lady, joined a freak show to earn a living.

Hirsute stars: Lionel, the lion-faced boy and Jo-Jo, the dog-faced boy both suffered from a condition called hypertrichosis but used their genetic affliction to become circus performers.

Captivating: A 26-month-old hairy baby was one of the attractions on show at the freak circuses around the mid-1800s in New York along with four-legged Myrtle Corbin, who had two sets of female genitalia.

Wonders: Eddie Masher was known as skeleton dude for his appearance and Prince Randian (right) who was born without arms or legs but was incredibly self-sufficient and able to shave, paint, write and even roll cigarettes.

Stretch of imagination: Felix Wehrle, Elastic Man, could stretch his skin because he had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome while Frank Lentini who was born with three legs in Sicily moved the U.S. and became famous before marrying and having four children.

At the turn of the last century, entertainment was a different species than it is today, having no T.V. nor radio nor action movies; you had to witness a living miracle in order to be fully entertained, and circuses provided that very thing. Showcasing hoards of deformed and mutant varieties of humans – that freak-collectors like P.T. Barnum rounded up and whipped into shape – the world marveled at what it so often sought to sweep under its own carpet. Circus sideshows might have been a cruel form of psychological abuse for any of the so-called “freaks” placed under contract (or a kind of indentured slavery), but some of these individuals also went on to profit greatly off what no one else would hire.

10

The Hilton Sisters

Violet and Daisy Hilton

Not Paris and Nicky – although they are a different sort of freak – these sisters were twins. Conjoined, to be exact. They shared a common blood and nervous system, which means they truly felt all the same pain. They were sold as slaves by their impecunious mother to a midwife, who greedily took advantage of their misfortune; while they sang, danced, played instruments in circus sideshows, their veritable slave-owner kept all their earnings and forbade them from socializing. Eventually a lawyer helped them escape their proverbial shackles and even reacquire the money they were swindled out of. They went on to do movies (including 1932’s Freaks) and earned as much as $5000 at the height of their showbiz careers.

9

The Wild Men of Borneo

These “wild men” were actually a twin pair of mentally-retarded midgets, for which there’d be no hope of employment if not for those ever-gawking circus-goers providing seemingly limitless opportunity (at least back in 1852). They were bought from their mother at the age of 26 by a man named Lyman Warner, and were taught their routine by P.T. Barnum, an act which included acrobatics, dancing, speaking in “their native language” (actually gibberish), and reciting poems in English. Enslaved in the Warner family for three generations, they kept on performing for almost fifty years – steady occupation, to say the least.

8

The Puppet-Woman

Lucia Zarate

Born as more of a “finger puppet,” at a weight of 8 ounces and a height of 7 inches, Zarate weighed less than a cat as an adult. She is the smallest recorded human being on Earth, a fact that had no trouble drawing a big crowd at the circus. When she came to America – she was born in Mexico in 1864 – at the age of 12, she was the highest paid dwarf at the time (at $20/hour). Sadly, she died at the age of 26 when her train got stopped in the Rocky Mountains during a snowstorm.

7

The Texas Giant

Jack Earle

Earle had a condition called acromegalic gigantism, the clinical term for what a circus – such as the Ringling Brothers or Barnum and Bailey – would label simply “a giant.” He traveled with both of the aforementioned for 14 years, longer than his original one-year contract. He also appeared in movies, like Jack and the Beanstalk (guess who he played). While it’s not easy for a “freak” to find normal work, Earle did just that, showing what he was capable of beyond the exploitation of his appearance: he was a salesmen for a wine company, eventually becoming their PR rep, as well as a sculptor, painter, and poet (published in a 1950 book called “Long Shadows”).

6

“Le Bossu”

Quasimodo is not fictional. Not entirely anyway. Appearing in Victor Hugo’s ultimate tale about being a victim of pure disposition, the eponymous Hunchback of Notre Dame may have been inspired by an actual hunchback who lived in Notre Dame. A British researcher found a memoir excerpt that told of a “humpbacked stone carver” that worked in a cathedral Hugo was very much involved with. Speculation is that he must have come across this rather antisocial individual, given the workers level of involvement on government-commissioned projects. Nicknamed “Le Bossu,” it’s not hard to see how this individual could have led to some fanciful speculations in Hugo’s fertile mind, as this was also about the time he was penning the novel (c.1831).

5

The Mule-Faced Woman

Grace McDaniels

Not a pleasant thing to be nicknamed, this women was born with a facial deformity that rendered her simply unpleasant to look at (what some might call ugly… or mule-faced). She was actually billed as “the ugliest woman in the world” as if that were an achievement worth aspiring to. In spite of her physical appearance, she was actually a nice person, and was married with child (who didn’t inherit the deformity, but became a problem drinker and criminal – which is to say, more of a social outcast than her).

4

Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy

Fedor Jeftichew

This dog-boy actually had a canine-like father as well. The dad, Adrian, was a bitter drunk, and ran from his village and into the woods one day, living in the feral manner a stray dog might. He himself faced mockery and ample shunning, and performed in sideshows to make money (billed as the son of a bear and a peasant woman). After he conceived a child, equally as hairy, they toured together until Adrian ended up dying a drunken death. The boy, however, went on to continue performing faithfully – under P.T. Barnum’s top hat – just as a trained dog might, barking and growling on command. In actuality, he wasn’t a dog-child, obviously, he had a condition called hypertrichosis; and more than just barking, he could speak English, Russian, and German (making him essentially quadrilingual).

3

Julia Pastrana

This indigenous Mexican woman’s memory is literally preserved, as she – following her death in 1860 – was stuffed and put on display the very way she had been while alive. Also born with hypertrichosis, her features were more characteristic of a gorilla than a dog; her nose and ears were especially large, her face was covered with hair, and she had a double pair of teeth which pronounced her mouth as such. She had a husband named Theodor Lent – who had originally purchased her and taught her to be a performer – and eventually a child of the same affliction, who died after three days. She died five days after that (complications from birth), and her exploitative husband had both her and the baby mummified and placed in a glass cabinet. Lent went on to marry another woman with a similar condition, and was later admitted to a mental hospital.

2

Schlitzie

Simon Metz

“Pinheads” were an especially big draw in the circus sideshows, and Schlitzie was one of them. Having a condition called microcephalus, his cranium was incredibly underdeveloped and sat like a baby’s head on the shoulders of a grown man. Schlitzie, as far as his brain was concerned anyway, was three. Nonetheless, he sang and danced, could count to 10, and starred in the movie Freaks at the physical age of 40. Also, if you’ve ever read the comic strip Zippy the Pinhead in the Sunday funnies, you can see where the inspiration comes from.

1

The Human Caterpillar

Prince Randian

No, not a Human Centipede; this was a real person, although no less startling while dressed in that sleeveless sock outfit. Just a head and a torso, this P.T. Barnum attraction was capable enough as a quadriplegic that he could light a cigarette with just his mouth – not to mention the fact that he had a wife and kids (none of which shared his affliction). He shows up in the movie Freaks, and performs the aforementioned cigarette “trick” – although its hardly a trick when you have no other limbs to rely on.

These are people who made a living as side-show freaks. Most had physical disorders and had no alternative way of making a living. A list of this type would not be complete without the most famous attraction of all: The Elephant Man. NOTE: Click the images for a larger view.

Born in 1862, Joseph Merrick developed a physical disorder that caused his limbs to grow extremely large when he was five years old. He joined a side-show attraction in 1884 where he was treated well and earnt a large sum of money. A visiting doctor saw him there and made arrangements for him to live a better life. It now believed that Joseph Merrick actually suffered from Proteus Syndrome and not elephantiasis as is commonly thought. Merrick died at the age of 27 from suffocation while he slept.

2. Juan Baptista dos Santos – The Man With Two Penises

Jean (or Juan) Baptista dos Santos is said to have been a “Gipsey”, born in Faro, Portugal around 1843, to normal parents with two other normal children. His career as an exhibitionist seems to have been confined strictly to medical circles; in 1865 turned down a sum of 200,000 francs to appear for two years with a French circus. He possessed two functioning penes and three scrota, the outer two of which each contained a single testis. Dos Santos claimed that the central scrotum had also contained a pair of fully-formed testes, but that these had retreated into his abdomen when he was ten years old.

Josephine Myrtle Corbin was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee in 1868. She was born a dipygus, meaning that she had two separate pelvises side by side from the waist down. The extra legs were part of a twin that did not split correctly, like Frank Lentini with his third leg. Each of her smaller inner legs was paired with one of her outer legs. She was said to be able to move her inner legs, but they were too weak for walking. She had four daughters and a son.

4. Mademoiselle Gabrielle – The Half Lady

Born in Basle, Switzerland, in 1884, Gabrielle Fuller first joined the circus at the Paris Exposition in 1900. She travelled with the Ringling Brothers Circus and appeared at Coney Island’s Dreamland sideshow. She was married at least twice, once to a man named John de Fuller. She had a perfectly formed upper body which ended smoothly just below the waist.

5. Mary Ann Bevan – The Ugliest Woman

Mary Ann Webster was born in London, England in 1874, one of eight children. As a young woman she worked as a nurse and in 1903 married a greengrocer named Thomas Bevan. Shortly after getting married, Mary Ann began exhibiting symptoms of acromegaly, a form progressive giantism that causes abnormal growth and distortion of the facial features, as well as headaches, failing eyesight and joint and muscle pain. The Bevans had four children before Thomas’ death in 1914.

6. Martin Laurello – The Human Owl

The man who we have come to know as Martin Laurello was born Martin Emmerling in Nuremburg, Germany around 1886. He began to perform his act in Europe when in his 20′s and brought it over to America in 1921. He appeared several times at Coney Island and worked also for Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey’s sideshow. He also worked for Dick Best’s Royal American Shows and as late as 1945 was appearing with Ripley’s shows along with “Popeye Perry” and “Junior Stiles”, 7-year old Lobster Boy.

Madame Clofullia was born Josephine Boisdechene in Switzerland. She was born hairy and reputedly had a two-inch beard at the age of eight. At the age of fourteen she began to tour Europe, first accompanied by her father and an agent and then with her father alone. In Paris she met painter Fortune Clofullia and eventually married him. She also gained extra fame when she fashioned her beard in the imitation of that of Napoleon III. In return, the ruler gave her a large diamond.

8. Wang – The Human Unicorn

In 1930, a Chinese farmer from Manchukuo was discovered by an expat Russian banker. The Russian was able to take a picture of the man and he sent the snapshot off to Robert Ripley of ‘Believe It Or Not!’ fame. Known only as Wang, or sometimes referred to as Weng, the farmer was normal in every respect except fot the fact that he possessed a fourteen-inch spire-like horn growing from the back of his head. Ripley offered a huge cash reward to anyone who could produce Wang for an appearance in his Odditorium. However Wang disappeared from the public eye in the early 1930′s and was never heard from again.

9. Lionel – The Lion Faced Boy

Stephan Bibrowsky was born in Poland in 1890 to normal parents. He suffered from hypertrichosis, a rare genetic disease that covers the entire bodies of the subjects with a thick coat of fur. Only about 50 cases of the disorder have been documented since the Middle Ages. In the case of Lionel, six-inch-long hair covered his body. He was discovered by a German man named Meyer when he was four years old and became famous throughout Europe where he gained the nickname of Lionel the Lion-Faced Man. Far from being exhibited as a beast, he wore often the best clothes to show that under his hairs he was a literate and enjoyable person that spoke five languages.

10. Ella Harper – The Camel Girl [Wikipedia]

This is the text from Ella Harper’s pitch card. A pitch card was an advertising flyer for attractions at a sideshow.

“I am called the camel girl because my knees turn backward. I can walk best on my hands and feet as you see me in the picture. I have traveled considerbly in the show business for the past four years and now, this is 1886 and I intend to quit the show business and go to school and fit myself for another occupation.”

I have actually seen a living case of this in Verona, Italy. A woman was kneeling on the road begging but her legs were bent in front of her at the knee rather than behind.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Burke’s Carnival midway 1939. Norman Prather painted the banner lines and he owned the show. The lady out front is a “come on”. She misled the men by standing in a pose. They thought they would see her nude when inside, but all they saw was painting of partially nude women hanging from the sidewall and racks. There were a lot of disappointed men and quite a few beefs ! The sign was big and bold and during a disagreement they would just point to the banner.

“Life was quiet and simple then, and a circus or carnival coming to town were really big events. Daddy always took off from work, and they would take us to the afternoon performance of the circus, which was always held in a huge tent. Bama would always go too. We would go to bed early when the circus was coming so that we could get up around four in the morning to go down to the Y&MV Railroad Depot to watch them unload. It was so exciting seeing the animals being unloaded, and then we would ride out to see the laborers, or roustabouts as they were called, putting up the huge tent. About eleven o’clock there would be a parade in downtown Greenwood with all of the horses and pretty girls and the calliope, which played music, and the clowns and cowboys. School would be let out for circus day.

“We would go into the sideshow first where they had ‘freaks’ of all kinds. There would be a fat lady, a rubber man, midgets, a sword swallower, a man who ate fire, etc. You had to pay extra to see them. After the main performance you could pay some more and stay for the Wild West Show. We took it all in, and then on the way out poor Daddy had to buy souvenirs for all of us. There were birds made of paper on sticks which looked like they were flying when you twirled them around, and dolls dressed in pink and blue feathers, and always there were Cracker Jacks, which we didn’t even like but always had to have because of the prize inside.

“The circuses and carnivals usually came in the fall because that was cotton picking season, and there was more money circulating then. At that time Greenwood depended on farmers for the town’s economy. All of the cotton was picked by hand, and that was the only time of year that the Negroes, who were sharecroppers, had any money. They lived in little shacks on the plantations and received a small share of the money when the cotton was sold. Cotton was the only crop grown in the Delta then, and Mama and Daddy would get excited every year when the oil mill began operating for another season. Years later when she would hear an oil mill whistle blow, Mama would say ‘That makes me so lonesome.’ She would be remembering those happy years when she and Daddy were young and he was managing the Buckeye Mill.

“There was a cotton field right down the street from us, and one time Mama made each of us a long cotton sack out of fabric and let us go with Rawa and Buddy and their friend John Howard Freeman to pick cotton for Mr. Hardin, who had planted it. I was too small to do much picking, but I did find a baby watermelon, and that made my day worthwhile. It was about the size of an orange and, of course, not fit to eat. At the end of the day, Mr. Hardin, who was the father of Olympic track star Slats Hardin, weighed the cotton and paid us for it just like he did with the Negro pickers.“Poor white families also made money picking cotton. It was hard work, and you would see fields of the white cotton with hundreds of pickers pulling their sacks over their shoulders and filling them with cotton. They would sing and talk and laugh while they picked.”She loved a spectacle.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, Sara would anticipate the arrival of the circus trains (or, later, the trucks) as eagerly at 40 as she did at 4. When the huge colorful posters went up downtown, announcing the imminent arrival of Ringling Brothers or somesuch, she would pull us over to soak in every detail, and by circus day it was as if the Queen of England and her court were headed for the Delta. Sara would bustle into our bedroom in the predawn dark, urging us in and out of the bathroom and into our clothes. I can still feel the dew around my Keds as we stood in a field out near Greenwood High School, sun barely over the horizon, the stink of animal dung hanging thick in the air, watching those elephants marching away from the tent center with ropes attached to their collars. It was an amazing sight to see that canvas rising from the dirt, the Big Top taking shape right in front of our sleepy eyes. Sara would scoot around with her flip-top steno pad, cornering a roustabout or ringmaster for a quick interview. Then it was back home to wait for the real show, and we never left without geegaws and souvenirs, which always thrilled her more than us.

It just couldn’t have possibly have been so rosy a world as Sara described. Greenwood and the Mississippi Delta, in the 1920s, was a harsh and brutal place for many of its inhabitants, white and black, but the Evans girls were so nurtured and adored in their brick bungalow family that all of that faded away. For Sara, looking back from 1990 to her childhood, Greenwood was a magical town, set squarely in the center of the universe, and peopled by kind and quirky characters whose lives were enriched by the arrival of circuses, showboats and carnivals.

Of course, there wasn’t a circus very often in Greenwood. But there were parades, and I don’t believe we ever missed one. Besides the thrill of Band Festival (a story for another day), there were patriotic parades and welcome-home parades and the apex, the ultimate: Friday afternoons when Greenwood High School’s band took over Howard Street, complete with cheerleaders, floats and pep rallies on Barrett’s corner. Sara was a Bulldog to the core and loved the tradition and hometown hoopla of those days.

She took Cathy and me out on a few cottonpicking expeditions, probably just so we could say we’d done it, or maybe in search of another baby watermelon.